Category: Comedy

‘Taking Woodstock’ Trailer

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I’m not quite sure what I think about this trailer or about this project in general.   The idea of Ang Lee directing a comedy about Woodstock doesn’t seem all that appealing.   From the trailer, the film looks like a pretty straight comedy.

The film follows the life of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) an aspiring Greenwich Village interior designer whose parents owned a small motel in Upstate New York and at the time held the only musical festival permit in the entire town of Bethel, New York. Tiber offered both the motel and the permit to the Woodstock Festival’s organizers.

The film also focuses on Tiber’s life as a closeted gay man hiding his marijuana as well as sexual orientation from his family, and his self-discovery following the Stonewall Riots.

Check it out right here:

‘Taking Woodstock’ comes out on August 14th, 2009.

Source: Youtube

Chuck the Truck Prequel to ‘Foot Fist Way’ On the Way?

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Say what you will about Devin Faraci, fake, real, or otherwise.   The guy got a helluva scoop out of Jody Hill on March 24th, 2009.   While doing a one-on-one interview with Hill for ‘Observe & Report’, Faraci asked him if we would see any more of Mike McAlister, Hill’s character in ‘The Foot Fist Way.’

While Hill didn’t think a Mike McAlister movie would come to fruition, he did speculate on what we might see coming up on a different character from that film.

“I’ve thought about doing a Chuck the Truck prequel,”‘ Hill told Faraci. “Sort of like ‘Boogie Nights’ where it spans the 70s and 80s, back when Chuck Norris was [big] and they were first televising martial arts. Do it like a Behind the Music thing where he’s doing blow, where he’s a young boy who rises to fame in tournaments.”

Whether this is something Hill has seriously considered or if it was just a nugget of an idea he came up with while talking to Faraci remains to be seen.   Regardless, hopefully, somewhere on the horizon, we will see a film called ‘Chuck the Truck’, and that film will make Ben Best a major star in the comedy world.

Source: CHUD

Farrelly Brothers find their Stooges!?!

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[taking a DEEP breath] So, as if learning a while back that the Farrelly Brothers were planning to do a “modern” remake of the Three Stooges wasn’t blasphemous enough, now we’re getting the news that MGM and the Farrelly Brothers are really closing to securing their stooges.

Why is this bothering me so much? Well, I haven’t told you WHO was being cast yet. Sean Penn is already confirmed to play Larry, the studio is in negotiations to cast Jim Carrey as Curly, and they’re apparently growing closer to landing Benicio del Toro as Moe!

The Farrelly Brothers have been struggling to get one of the major studios to bite on this project for the better part of a decade. Now that MGM has climbed aboard, it seems things are full steam ahead.

So goes the word on the street, Carrey is even already making plans to gain 40 pounds for the role! God, why hast thou forsaken me! Yeah, I like all of these actors and I could totally see this working if they were making a BIOPIC of the actors and not a COMEDY, but that’s not the case.

The film is not a biopic, but rather a comedy built around the antics of the three characters that Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Howard played in the Columbia Pictures shorts. — Variety

I’m not even sure exactly what the above snippet means, but it’s clear that the movie is NOT a biopic. Jim Carrey makes sense, I suppose, but how the three will manage to work together on such a fragile comedic concept without butchering it and still, by some miracle, reignite that special chemistry that the REAL Three Stooges had is way beyond me.

I’m sorry for being so negative and pessimistic (not really) about this news, but I grew up watching and loving ‘The Three Stooges’ [re-runs that is] and still have many fond and joyous memories of that time and activity of my life. I’d like to say I still religiously watch the Stooges on Spike TV, but who has the time? This is really a hard realization for me to swallow. All I can say is… Farrelly Brothers, you’re treading on thin ice, my friends!

[source: Variety]

“Naked Dawn” Trailer (w/ Rob Schneider, Mena Suvari and Vinnie Jones) [NSFW]

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What if the Russians attacked the U.S.? What if Rob Schneider was our last hope? What if he was naked? Looks like Rob Schneider is back in his spoof mode with this epic and explicit trailer that looks to be a failing homage to the 80s classic Red Dawn. Naked Dawn stars Rob Schneider, Mena Suvari Vinnie Jones and is directed by Jake Szymanski.

Funny or Die @ SXSW – The Dirty Garage / Gobstopper

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Funny or Die has had a stellar year so far for bringing us the laughs. As SXSW came to a close, some funny and unique trailers made there way into and infront of some of the films that played. One of them was The Dirty Garage, a close look at the relationships of twenty somethings on a trip to clean the garage. The other was horror favorite Gobstopper, a mash-up of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the Saw Franchise. Check them out below and tell us what you think!

‘Five Killers’ brings back Familiar Favorites

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Lionsgate is developing a new action/comedy called ‘Five Killers’ which will star Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl, written by Bob DeRosa and Ted Griffin and directed by Robert Luketic (’21’).

The story follows a hitman (Kutcher) at the top of his game who falls for a computer tech (Heigl) and decides to hang up his guns. Years later, their suburban bliss is ruptured when he finds out there’s a hit out on him, forcing him and his spooked wife to go on the run. — HR

So, what’s the big deal?

Who thought Tom Selleck was dead? Or, maybe he’d gone into retirement, secluding himself from the rest of the world to live the life of a hermit? WRONG! That’s right… Tom Selleck is back and has been cast in ‘Five Killers’ along side two other familiar faces that we’ve come to miss, Catherine O’Hara (not so lost, ‘For Your Consideration’) and Martin Mull (‘Night Court’).

Now, I know many of you are eagerly, maybe even fanatically, jumping up and down in your seats screaming with unbridled anticipation, but sit tight. ‘Five Killers’ begins production this month and is scheduled to hit theaters on June 4, 2010.

[source: Hollywood Reporter]

‘Fockers’ Get A New Director

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Robert DeNiro, Ben Stiller and the rest of the family are coming back for another installment  in Meet The Parents/Fockers   franchise. This one’s  titled ‘The Little Fockers’ and it will bring back John Hamburg who wrote the previous two films. There is a new addition to the “family”, Peter  Segal will be directing instead of Jay Roach. Segal became available when scheduling fell through on Get Smart  . We will have to see what a new visionary will bring to the third installment in Universal’s biggest “cash cow”. Meet the Parents/Fockers  has netted over $800 million worldwide.  Film is in pre-production and has no release date as of yet.

Review: ‘Duplicity’

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Ram Man:

Tony Gilroy has brought us some of the best action films in the past few years (Bourne Trilogy, Armageddon) . Gilroy has re-team Clive Owen and Julia Roberts in a   sassy corporate espionage who-done-it, ‘Duplicity’. Duplicity has an “Oceans” feel from the opening credits and delivers an entertaining story that will have you guessing the outcome right up to the closing credits.

Clive Owen and Julia Roberts play  Ray Kovac and Claire Stenwick,   spies that share a steamy past. The two hooked up on an assignment in Dubai where Claire slept with Ray, drugged him and stole some government secrets and then disappeared. The crazy couple then bump back into each other years later and decide to quit the spy business and go into business for themselves so they can retire to a life of luxury in Italy. They need to make one last big score to build the needed capital to retire. Ray and Claire enter the private sector of corporate espionage. Claire is a mole working for Howard Tully (Tom Wilkerson), a CEO of a personnel care company that is developing the next big skin creme. His competition Richard Garsith (Paul Giamatti), an over zealous CEO that will beg borrow and yes…steal to get ahead in the business. He has planted Claire in Tully’s company to steal the formula to the big secret product that they are about to unveil to the stockholders. The only thing is Ray and Claire plan to steal the formula for themselves and sell it to an overseas company for about $40 million.

I’m not going to give away any more of the twists and turns of the is film. Let me just say Duplicity has more layers than an onion and you won’t know what is happening until just before the house lights come on. There is a noticeable lack of any action. Duplicity is a sort of ‘Man from Uncle’ meets ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ type film. Duplicity keeps you entertained with witty banter between Owen and Roberts and an outstanding performance by Giamatti. If you are looking for Mission Impossible , Duplicity is not for you. But if you want an interesting romantic spy drama that will make you think then go check out duplicity and see if you can figure out who is conning who and why?

‘Duplicity’ [PG-13] opens today in theaters everywhere.

[Overall: 3.75 stars out of 5]

Review: ‘Moscow, Belgium’

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Watching ‘Moscow, Belgium’ got me to thinking about foreign films, specifically those from the European region of filmmaking. I realized I hadn’t seen many lately and I’d almost forgotten about how well the European filmmakers often understand the language of the cinema.

What I mean is, this movie, directed by Christophe Van Rompaey, is such a well-made movie that prefects that unique style of charming European cinema. It amazes me at times how European films often master the art of dialogue so well whereas in American cinema it seems too often a goal that we must struggle to achieve.

The story follows Matty (Barbara Sarafian), a 41-year old mother of three who is struggling to keep it together from day to day while her artist/teacher husband Werner (Johan Heldenbergh) is away having a mid-life crisis with a much younger student of his.Matty finds herself feeling fed up with waiting for Werner, which leads her on a path of rediscovered happiness with a 29-year old truck driver.

The task of caring for three children and working a full-time job all by herself is taking a toll on her ability to be happy and maintain a healthy mental state as her nerves begin to fizzle. At the beginning of the film, Matty has an accident with a truck driver named Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet) in the parking lot of a grocery store, sending her near the edge of losing it. Matty and Johnny get into a heated argument over the accident before the cops arrive and settle the situation, but Johnny experiences a sudden change of heart just before Matty leaves which becomes the central catalyst for the story.

‘Moscow, Belgium’ is a wonderful love story that is romantic and beautiful in it’s realism and portrayal of real characters with real issues in the real world. The movie doesn’t get lost frolicking in the make-believe world of the typical romantic comedy. I wouldn’t even really call this a comedy aside from it having some genuinely humorous human moments. The relationship that develops between Matty and Johnny is bumpy and is constantly challenged by Werner’s attempts to win Matty back, but ultimately survives as an example of a love that seems so natural to Matty that she may be willing to risk everything to give it a chance.

The cinematography falls into that wonderful category of cinema verite, which seems to be making a comeback in motion pictures. With that said, the movie still captures a delightful palette of colors and benefits from the imperfect charm of the town in which it was filmed. Barbara Sarafian gives a remarkable performance as Matty and sells the internal emotional and psychological battle she is waging with herself over deciding between Johnny and Werner. I’m making an early call and placing her on my personal list of top performances for 2009.

‘Moscow, Belgium’ [Not Rated] opens today in Saint Louis and is playing at the Tivoli Theatre.

[Overall: 4.5 stars out of 5]